1/700 HMS Prince of Wales (Flyhawk)
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by Pavel Lupandin |
1/700 HMS Prince of Wales (Flyhawk)
This is my interpretation of Flyhawk's battleship HMS Prince of Wales in 1/700 scale, displayed as would have been seen during speed trials in April 1941 (last photo from IWM that inspired the look). She is painted Home Fleet Grey, with heavy paint chipping on the bow from her trials, but otherwise in pretty good shape. Lower hull has moderate weathering and discoloration as well (and I hope the red is the correct color for antifouling paint).Why Prince of Wales?
Prince of Wales has had a short service, punctuated by its famous engagement with Bismarck, a journey to the US with Churchill onboard and a rather tragic end to it all in Malaya straits from Japanese torpedoes and bombs. I have always been fascinated by the whole Hood vs Bismarck thing as a kid, so when building those models and Hood especially, I have read with great interest the testimonials of PoW crew of Hood's sinking. That read really sparked an interest in building that ship's model, but not as sunk with that complicated, and yes, unique camouflage, but earlier on, in grey, to keep company for the Hood model. They do look striking together, so different and so characteristic of the Royal Navy's designs.
I was very happy to see that Flyhawk released a fantastic model of the ship, even ahead of its upcoming Hood offering. I got the kit in 2018, and started on it - and then it sat in a box, hull just painted once or twice, as I struggled with complexity, thin plastics that warped from glue, seam lines, etc, etc . I guess I was not ready. This year I ran a little poll on my Instagram (IG @Pascalemod) and asked which model to build - and Prince of Wales won out. So I had to finish it!
How the build was going you can read about here as well: .
Changes to the kit were as follows:
- PE in the deluxe kit including main and secondary barrels (mostly excellent)
- Masts from brass and Model Master's yardarms
- Covered up the larger boats with putty to imitate weather canvas covers
- Rigging using Modelkasten tungsten wire, 0.06mm
- Flag decals using aluminium foil method
- Resin UP launchers were procured separately as the kit was a 12/41 conversion which did not have them (Flyhawk conveniently released a 5/41 model after I already purchased the December one with an idea of conversion in mind
- Platform between forward HACS directors is modified based on feedback in CASF thread, and this was better than what the 5/41 kit had, I think
- I installed the resin ventilators all 50+ of them on the deck, bit by bit and a deck painting mask was used to carefully paint all of them at once as I didn't want to pre paint them and glue - fearing the bond would not be as good, which is crucial for smth so tiny. I knocked off only 5 or 6 in the process and had to reattach them later, which I find a very acceptable fail rate
- One of the Walrus planes has had its wings folded and placed in the starboard hangar, hangar itself also has spare wing on the wall (you cannot see it but I know it is there situation)
- Airbrushed with custom Tamiya paints (XF66 for the 507B, decks were painted by hand using mixes of browns, beiges and greys according to David Griffith method)
- Weathering using pencils, oil washes, and pigments (black on funnels and various on lower hull), dry brushing
- Photography using Helicon Focus software post processing / focus stacking, camera Canon 6D with 18-70mm lens (on zoom) and manual focus and stabilization "Off", as per Marijn Van Gils kind advice
- Errors: Probably should have used a finer forward mast yardarm, should have built a catapult for the Walrus (the kit doesn't have it for some reason) and I'm really not 100% about the rigging as all KGV ships had somewhat different arrangements
